


Horizon (Light And Shadow)

by Erinya



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-19
Updated: 2006-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinya/pseuds/Erinya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A highly romantic portrait of Jack and Elizabeth at the end of one story, beginning another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horizon (Light And Shadow)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hereswith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereswith/gifts).



Envision if you will, from a little distance as from a high promontory in the last hour of a long Caribbean day, the silhouette of tall sails: a graceful black ship upon a glowing sea. Two figures stand together at her winged prow, a man and a woman; he close behind her, hands at her waist, she leaning back against him with the easy familiarity of long association, both their gazes fixed always on the bright line where sky and water meet. The slow slanted light spills over them, thick and golden as honey, as the woman's hair that flows free in the wind to mingle with the man's wild dark mane, dance of flame and shadow.

Let us draw a little closer; they will not know, for in this moment their private world admits no other. See his ring-studded fingers, elegant-boned beneath their sailor's stain of tar, flex on her hips as he bends his head to murmur in her ear, sun flashing off the silver medallion that hangs among his braids, off the quick gold of his smile. See her laughing eyes as she answers, turning in his arms. See their glances linger and lock, and all that is reflected there: shared knowledge and memory, ecstasy and sorrow, for they have each journeyed long and far, together and apart, to the end of the world and back to reach this place; they have each lost and gained and given a life, their fragile trust, their freedom.

She reaches up, takes his face between her hands; he drops his forehead to hers, and they remain thus for a little while, a gesture almost more intimate than the kiss that follows.

And there, I think, we shall leave them, as the sun melts into the sea and twilight softens and fades, though the light in their eyes does not dim apace. Lanterns flare along the length of the deck and, finally, yellow in the windows of the Great Cabin, and the ship sails outward under the emerging stars, ever towards the open ocean and the endless, wide, and beckoning horizon.


End file.
